An Assortment of Labyrinth Goodness
by Ellie101
Summary: This is an assortment of fics where I've combined all of the responses to Labyrinth challenges that I've recieved. Each chapter is a seperate story.
1. Twisted Fate

Twisted Fate  
By Ellie

She hadn't even the common _decency _to say his name once.

Not once in nearly five months. Her deliberate snub of him ordinarily would have been amusing, her eyes, staring for hours at a worn red book with "Labyrinth" sketched into the cover would have had him smiling at her stupidity. If she had been like the others.

Sarah Williams, he had learned, was nothing like the other girls that succumbed to his whispered promises or the subtle romance of his songs.... She had confused him, outraged him, and in the end defied the very fiber of his being... His magic.

Now he was trapped like a shadow to be constantly ruled by the sun. His owl form was regal while flying throughout his Labyrinth, and when given access to the power that now lay curled within his breast like a subdued beast. But here, in her world he was utterly trapped.

His magic, much like the beast he had named it, left signs of it's presence but remained wholly untouchable by him in his current state. It lingered maddeningly beyond his grasp; the elusive song of freedom even more potent as he listened to the triumphant calls of his mortal counterparts.

The owls didn't accept him.. He was something other and they did not know quite what to make of him. He was utterly alone, and dependent on a girl that refused to acknowledge his presence, though he haunted the branches outside her window every night...

He was filthy, without his most rudimentary of powers, and utterly hopeless without the aid of the one person in over a hundred years to have beaten him. Heaven help him, if he wanted to escape he was going to have to simply convince her of his presence.

Hellfire and damnation, if these past months were any indication of Sarah's stubbornness it was going to take quite a bit of convincing.

All she had to do was say his name, and he would be free.

Cursing in the screeching tones of the owl he now was, he flew into the rising light of the sun.

A/N) Addie's challenge: What if Jareth stayed an owl?


	2. Half in Shadow

Half in Shadow  
By Ellie

The thin girl was sitting alone in the darkest corner of the room. One of her hands twirled a strand of mahogany hair in constant frenzied circles while she stared into the darkness and whispered to herself.

She was a pretty girl, and the shadow of the woman she may someday become was hinted at in the hallows of her developing cheekbones and the line of her neck and shoulders; an elegant beauty was blossoming in her, and not even the dingy sweatpants and wild, disarrayed hair could disguise the evidence of its coming.

"Why is she here?" I gestured towards her, curious despite myself.

Dr. Branson smiled in an apologetic kind of way, "That's Sarah. She suffers from delusions but tends to often be quite lucid. She's medicated, a precaution we had to take after an unfortunate incident with a mirror two months ago. We believe she may harm herself without it."

"But you say she's lucid..." I made it a firm statement.

Dr. Branson's eyes widened, "John you can't possibly think to-" I interrupted him with a wave of my hand.

"It's my project if you remember, and I was given express permission to interview with any person here with enough wits about them to understand what I'm doing. You said that she's usually lucid, I'd say that means that 'Sarah' falls under my list of possible candidates."

Without another word, I walked towards the beautiful girl, stashed away in her corner, talking to something past the walls with bubbly animation.

"There aren't any turns! What's a maze without any turns?!" She murmured brokenly to her wrist.

"Sarah?" I asked quietly.

As those big green eyes drew upwards to meet mine I felt a surge of electric shock as the glassy green-amber seemed to focus and crackle with new energy and intelligence. It was as if I were watching a person become born, in moments with all of her personality in tact. Her posture straightened, her hands stopped shaking and rested lightly in front of her, and those suddenly fathomless green eyes were looking into mine and measuring me, with obvious intelligence.

My breath almost caught as an unbearably sexy smile stole over lips much too young for her to understand her own mysterious appeal, "Yes, I'm Sarah. Did Hoggle send you? He's such a dear friend, my Hoggle."

I noticed her fingers slightly shaking as she followed her puzzling words with a brilliant smile, devoid of all meaning. "Hoggle has been trying to help me escape, but he and Ludo and Sir Didymus just can't seem to do anything without his help." Her eyes took on a conspiratorial gleam as she sidled a little closer to my ear, "We must never call on him or the goblins will come!"

She shrieked with a sudden spasm of giggles, "Goblins! Goblin King!" She snapped her hand over her mouth hard enough to bruise as her eyes widened childishly. "Oh, no, mustn't say the words!!" She began to rock back and forth as tears fell like rain from her clenched eyes. Her hands were pressing hard into her mouth and the golden hue of her skin had turned pallid.

A nurse began to glance towards Sarah, and I stepped away, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, those green eyes flew open and she looked into my own with a force I've never felt before, "You can help! If you say the words we'll be free!"

Elegant, tapered fingers grasped my own sharply and she grabbed my notebook from the table and scrawled 10 precise words onto the first sheet:

**I wish the goblins would take you away, right now.**

"Say them! Please, you have to help me! Say them NOW!" The intensity in her voice spurned me to force the words from my suddenly parched throat.

Her eyes closed and her face became serene as the nurse rushed towards her, a needle at the ready. She was smiling as they administered the sedative and her eyes grew cloudy once more, but I still heard her whisper to me before she fell under the medicine's cold embrace: "He'll come for me now. Thank you for saving me."

When I returned the next day to visit Sarah, and to question her about the words that are still scrawled in my notebook I was informed that she had disappeared the same night that I had met her. None of her possessions were missing, and the only thing out of place in her room was the presence of a single white feather.

Sometimes I pull out my notebook and trace the words she wrote. What kind of power did they hold over her? And was it a power of the mind, or of the spirit?

Someday, I may try them out myself.

Someday.

A/N) Addie's challenge: Write a Crazy!Sarah fic, where her time in the Labyrinth has affected her mind. Grins this one was a lot of fun to write, and it has a couple of plot bunnies scurrying around my head... I may return to this at some point. ;)


	3. Sunrise, Sunset

Sunrise, Sunset  
By Ellie

He knew that the red light painted him wickedly... This day, he was glad of it.

The sun was setting, and had turned a deep blood-red, shot through with brilliant streaks of orange, and dotted with puffy pink clouds. A very romantic setting, and an uncommonly beautiful sight in a world that had been drained of its magic.

He was Aboveground, and he knew that his physique screamed "danger" to all that saw him standing in that pooled haze of red light. His clothes were simple, but his stance was one of royalty. Power fairly blazed from him, and many a lady paused to admire the elegant lines of his face and body before scurrying off to finish the hectic dance that humans called "life".

He didn't care about any of it as he watched the couple run to their limo amidst a flurry of cheers and rice... And as that red sun fell down the sky and slipped into night, Jareth felt his heart harden to stone.

In the absolute darkness a crystal shone brightly.

And then he was gone.

A/N) Addie's challenge: Jareth and a sunset... ;) Was written with Addie in mind, who isn't much of a J/S shipper, and also a great lover of angst... Pretty short, but I was happy with it overall.


	4. The Maze

The Maze  
By Ellie

Sarah wasn't afraid of the rambling shrubbery; she didn't fear the dead-ends or the endless turns and the abrupt direction changes. It was daylight and she wasn't traversing it alone... She could hear her friends thumping and cursing behind green leaves as they all fought their way towards the center.

When Cara had told her house-warming guests that her grandmother's ancient maze held a prize for the first to reach it's center, everyone had become excited... Everyone but Sarah, who had reached the center of a maze once before, not to claim a prize, but a young child that she had foolishly wished away.

After a couple glasses of wine, her friends' enthusiasm caught up with her, until she was racing into the maze alongside everyone else.

Jason had been playfully chasing after her for a while, before a sudden turn in direction seemed to split them apart. Now Sarah was alone and determinedly seeking the path to the prize while listening to the giggles and taunting of her friends.

She smiled as she heard Tina cry out playfully for some "hedge clippers", turned sharply to the left, and found herself standing in the middle of a very neglected garden.

Roses crawled up rickety arbors, and plants and flowers grew alongside weeds that threatened to choke out their beauty. Sarah searched left and right for the "prize" before her eyes settled on an old stone bench, riddled with cracks and humbly beautiful regardless of them.

She walked towards it and stopped dead. Silence... There was nothing here but absolute silence. No laughing, or noises; nothing but the eerie whistling of a sudden wind that stirred the leaves and whipped her hair into her eyes.

Sitting on the bench was a perfect crystal. Sarah backed away in horror. What _was_ this?! How could it be happening?!

A rich laugh sounded, and shivers crawled up Sarah's spine. _Him._

She grasped the crystal and hurled it downwards, where it shattered into thousands of glass shards. The wind beat angrily on her back before whipping the crystal dust into a swirling cyclone of glitter and carrying it away.

She had been a fool to forget...

Mazes were _his_ territory.

A/N) My challenge to Addie: Sarah is in a garden maze when strange things start to happen.... What's going on?!


	5. Ice of Death

Ice of Death  
By Elle

The chill of the room seeped into him. He had always hated the cold, and now he was forced to endure its icy touch until his death.

The bloodied chains that imprisoned him were lined with a power that he could not break... Power from the Labyrinth itself. He smiled grimly into the darkened obuilette, the irony of this situation was not lost on him...

Snowflakes fell from above... drifting peacefully downwards. Jareth watched them with malice in his eyes... To be frozen to death had to be one of the absolute worst ways to go about dying. Had he magic, he would have blasted the damn snow out of existence, let alone the manacles that held him.

The spirit in his eyes simmered to a halt as his shoulders slumped. Without magic what was he but another lost soul claimed by the Labyrinth?

What was he except for one of the Unwanted and Forgotten?

A/N) I had so much trouble with this challenge! It's as if my brain just would NOT connect to my fingers! Yes, it's extremely short... But considering the circumstances? Well, shrugs I'm lucky to have gotten anything written to begin with.

Addie's challenge: A winter fic, take it anywhere...


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